Collaborative Research: Human Resources for Computational High Energy Physics

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。这是一个计算高能物理学的小组项目，由亚利桑那大学、加州大学、圣巴巴拉分校、犹他大学和美国物理学会的物理学家共同完成。博士后研究助理接受软件开发和算法方面的培训，以有效地使用现在或即将提供给工作科学家的万亿次甚至千万亿次规模的计算机。大规模的数值计算被广泛认为是计算科学的重大挑战之一。具体来说，将启动以下新计划：(1)一种新的，高度改进的处理轻夸克的算法，这将大大提高这些计算的精度，(2)一种新的，精确的奇异夸克质量测定，(3)一种改进的处理重夸克的算法的发展，以及(4)高精度地确定粲夸克和反粲夸克的束缚态能级。这项研究解决了高能和核物理学中的基本问题，比如找到夸克质量这样的基本参数，或者在极端温度下的强相互作用行为，比如在重离子碰撞或早期宇宙中发现的那些。这项工作直接关系到高能和核物理的主要实验项目，包括布鲁克海文的RHIC，杰斐逊实验室的实验，以及大型强子对撞机。这个程序开发的代码是公开的，并被世界上其他几个组织使用。所开发的一些代码和算法，例如用于求解非常大的方程组的代码和算法，可以应用于其他大型科学模拟。本项目博士后研究人员在大规模并行计算和最先进的数据统计分析方面发展技能。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). This is a group project in computational high energy physics being carried out by physicsts at the University of Arizona, University of California, Santa Barbara, University of Utah, and the American Physical Society. Postdoctoral research associates are trained in software development and algorithms needed to effectively use the teraflop and even petaflop scale computers that are now or will be made available to working scientists. The very large-scale numerical calculations that are required are widely recognized as one of the grand challenges of computational science. Specifically, the following new initiatives will be launched: (1) a new, highly improved algorithm for treating light quarks, which will significantly improve the precision of these calculations, (2) a new, accurate determination of the strange quark mass, (3) the development of an improved algorithm for treating heavy quarks, and (4) a high-precision determination of the energy levels of bound states of a charm quark and an anticharm quark.This research addresses fundamental questions in high energy and nuclear physics, such as finding fundamental parameters like the masses of the quarks, or the behavior of strong interactions at extreme temperatures such as those found in heavy ion collisons or in the very early universe. This work is directly related to major experimental programs in high energy and nuclear physics including RHIC at Brookhaven, experiments at Jefferson Laboratory, and at the large hadron collider. The codes developed by this program are publicly available and are used by several other groups worldwide. Some of the codes and algorithms developed, such as those for solving very large systems of equations, may be applied in other large scientific simulations. Postdoctoral research associates in this project develop skills in large-scale massively parallel computations and state-of-the-art statistical analysis of data.